


Side Effects

by idoltina



Series: Nightminds [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:13:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idoltina/pseuds/idoltina
Summary: Prompt fill foroutlaw queen + doctorsandoutlaw queen + blood.“What happened?” Regina breathes, only just refraining from reaching out for him. “Blue didn’t do this to you.”“Not directly, no,” Gold grits out, withdrawing his hand. Regina’s eyes follow it back to where it comes to rest atop the handle of his cane and he hasn’t need the damn thing in nearly a year, what the hell is going on? “One could call it a side effect of her death.”Or, the heroes deal with the fallout after Blue’s death.-----Thursday, September 4, 2014.





	Side Effects

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** adult language, blood, disfigurement, discussion of assault and murder
> 
> The full Nightminds Calendar can be found [here](http://idoltina.tumblr.com/post/149427108550/nightminds-verse-full-calendar).

It’s cooler in here than it is outside, the air conditioning a stark contrast to the sweltering heat of early September, and while she can feel the remnants of her sweat — the way her hair sticks to the nape of her neck, the filmy residue a dry layer on her skin — Regina is relatively sure that the abrupt change is temperature has nothing to do with her current state. There’s a faint ringing in her ears, distant and hollow, and while the logical part of her mind knows the hospital is bustling with sound in the middle of the afternoon, Regina hears none of it. She is _shaking_ , and each breath pulls in shallow, releases in jagged pieces, her tongue dry and tacky in her mouth. She keeps blinking at the same set of tiles on the floor in front of her, each thought sluggish and hazy and jolting to an abrupt stop before it can get much traction. 

She does not look down at her hands.

Her magic is still lingering just under the surface, she can feel it, but it’s different, no longer the usual undercurrent thrumming beneath her skin waiting for her to reach down and pull, expand. No, this is… alive, almost, magic with a mind of its own, and the way it buzzes and vibrates is like a spark waiting to catch, explode. In a way it’s almost reminiscent of some of the ways she’d felt Liara’s magic, back when Regina was still pregnant, but even in that, this sets itself apart. This is so far beyond wild to the point of being _unhinged_ , and as the last vestiges of control slip away from her, she wonders if this is what Emma had felt like after she’d healed Robin, a little more than two weeks ago.

(After she’d kept Regina alive, back in March.)

She finds herself longing for the gentle calm of her daughter’s magic, ache and need twisting at her core, but shame floods her chest almost immediately after, guilt gnawing at her gut. It’s not a wholly bad thing, she knows — Liara’s still just a baby, she can’t control her magic — but the desire to tap into it, selfishly, goes against everything Regina stands for, everything she’s been so adamant about right from the start. Liara’s magic is not hers to wield, not anymore, and Regina will not pull it from her without her consent. But the magic Liara gives freely — instinctually, Regina has to remind herself — can’t always be helped: they often find themselves in the middle of it before they’ve even realized it’s begun, and leaning into its impact is often merely a byproduct of being close to her.

A side effect, really, of loving her.

Regina starts at the touch of a hand on her shoulder, but she’s barely started to glance over when its owner speaks up. “Come with me,” Gold murmurs.

She’s rising to her feet and stumbling after him half-blind, hardly seeing where they’re going, but he doesn’t lead her far, just to what she thinks is an alcove off of one of the smaller, less trafficked hallways. The half moment of silence between them is almost too much to bear, sharp and grating around the edges, so Regina forces words out, breath still shaky and uneven as she shivers, wraps her arms around her middle and doesn’t quite look him in the eye. “How is she?”

His response is, thankfully, blessedly, quick, blunt where it needs to be. “Miss Swan has seen better days,” he says, voice sounding a bit rough around the edges, “but we’ve done all we can for her. Doctor Whale’s seeing to her now.” A beat, and then his hand settles gently against her arm, gripping lightly around her elbow. “She’ll live, Regina, in no small part thanks to you.”

It’s that, oddly enough, the utterly ridiculous notion that she deserves any of the credit for the fact that Emma is still breathing, that jolts her back into her own skin. The scoff that escapes her is bitter, wry and wet. “And you,” she tacks on needlessly. She flicks her eyes up, ready to arch an eyebrow at him, but the sight that greets her has her faltering, jaw going a little slack. It’s the first time she’s looked at him, _really_ looked at him beyond a half-glance since he’d caught and held her gaze over Emma’s body well over an hour ago, and Regina finds that she is not at all prepared for the dramatic change in his appearance. He’s lost color in his cheeks, skin a bit ashen, eyes dull and dark, but it’s a mere backdrop, nothing, she thinks, compared to the large, jagged gash cut diagonally across his entire face, deep and gnarled and healed a thousand times over.

In the absence of the crocodile, Rumplestiltskin has taken the form of a beast.

“What happened?” Regina breathes, only just refraining from reaching out for him. “Blue didn’t do this to you.”

“Not directly, no,” he grits out, withdrawing his hand. Regina’s eyes follow it back to where it comes to rest atop the handle of his cane and he hasn’t need the damn thing in nearly a year, what the hell is going on? “One could call it a side effect of her death.”

Regina looks up at him sharply, only half-aware that she’s somehow managed to get her shivering down to a minimum. “A side effect,” she deadpans.

“Yes,” he says, almost snarling. And _there_ he is, patience clearly wearing thin, gloves off and all teeth, gentleness from a mere moment ago nearly gone. “They’re not always apparent immediately — I mean, clearly.”

And that… lands with her, zings in the space right under her heart and it’s Liara she thinks of — of lightning storms and cascading waves, of love and light and a heart far too pure to have come from hers. Regina’s eyes fall to Gold’s hand again, follow the ghost of the glowing bond wrapped around his wrist, all the way up along his arm. The ends that had been tethered to her are severed, frayed along the edges, but there had been one to take her place, she knows — to keep him in check without ever needing the dagger.

Gold has not been immune to Liara’s side effects, either.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” is all she says instead.

He exhales sharply, shifts his weight from one leg to the other and adjusts his grasp on the handle of his cane. “Blue had been harvesting magic for centuries. It’s what made her so unstable in recent months — we all knew that. It’s why she —“

“— why she made a desperate grab for _my daughter_ , yes, I know,” Regina grits out, fingers flexing fitfully at her elbows. “What does that have to do with —“

“Magic is like matter, Regina, you _know_ that,” he says, and the edge to his voice is oddly… hollow, almost like he’s too tired to put effort into being angry. “It’s never created or destroyed, only transformed or transferred. With her death, everything she’d been harboring had to go _somewhere_.”

Her brow knits in confusion. “So… what, it was just released into the air and left you a little parting gift before going god knows where? Because if it can’t find a host or — or goes unchecked and uncontrolled then we have a bigger problem beyond —“

“Regina,” he mutters, and it’s an admonishment with very little patience, like he’s chastising a child who ought to know better, like he’s — 

Like he’s found fault in her faith, and only now does she actually _see_ what’s in front of her.

“You —“ she starts, then stops, opens her mouth and closes it twice before she can manage to force the words out. “You took it. You absorbed her magic into your own.”

“There’s no telling what it would have done if I hadn’t,” he says, infuriatingly calm, and it’s a bitter truth that has her stomach twisting in knots.

“We _trusted_ you,” she whispers, and her voice doesn’t quite crack but breaks, somewhere in the middle.

A brief glimmer of confusion flashes across his face, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considers her. “And… rightfully so, I’d like to think.”

“Do not,” Regina bites out thinly, fingers unfurling, falling to her waist, “stand there and pretend you did this out of some noble cause. You can’t possibly expect me to give you the benefit of the doubt here, not when you have proven a thousand times over what you’re capable of with enough power —“

“Pot, kettle,” Gold throws back sharply, and his eyes are daggers now, dark and glittering.

It’s as good as if he’d slapped her, has her biting back bile, but she can’t — Being half a hypocrite matters little, in the end, if she lets him get away with this. “What difference does it make?” she challenges, low and near-breathless as she uncurls her arms from around herself at last. “Letting that magic loose on the population may only have been half as dangerous as what _you_ could do, yielding it. And you’re standing there,” she says, taking a small step forward into his space that has him leaning back uncomfortably, tightening the grip upon his cane, “insinuating that you should be _trusted_ with the power Blue abused for half a millenia? On top of the power _you’ve_ held as the Dark One for nearly as long? You expect me to believe that possessing the dagger holds the same weight it used to or — or that your magic’s bond to _my infant daughter_ is supposed to —“

“ _Your daughter_ ,” Gold snaps, and it’s his turn to take a step forward, and another, and another, leaves her starting and stumbling back, breath hitching in her chest, “is most likely the only reason I’m still drawing breath at the moment.”

The knot in her stomach unwinds, leaving it hollow, heavy, ready to sink all the way down. “What?”

Silence is sharp in the air between them for almost a full minute as he considers her, eyes raking over her features, and it takes everything in her not to shiver again, skin tingling with pinpricks as her magic screams, claws beneath the surface, struggling to get out and protect, protect, _protect_.

And then he hums, low and in the back of his throat, and the smile he flashes at her is all crocodile, teeth and bite. “You’re having trouble reining it in, aren’t you?” he murmurs, takes a step forward until her back hits the wall, starling a gasp out of her. “Your magic? Got away from you a bit there trying to help Miss Swan.”

“You _told_ me to —“

“I told you to lean into your instincts,” he says darkly, “and to _focus_. You’ve forgotten the latter, now that there’s nowhere to channel it.” He pauses, eyes flicking down to her mouth before his lips curl into a sneer of a smile, and he leans in almost uncomfortably close. “And now you can taste it, can’t you? All that… desperation that got in your way before — it’s lingered, hasn’t it? Given you a glimpse into what it would be like to _actually_ let magic take control of —“

“Get to the point,” she bites out, and it’s all venom, all queen as she pushes herself slightly off the wall, reaches out a hand and stings her fingers into the skin on the back of his hand.

“Darkness likes how we taste, dearie,” he murmurs, and his smile grows tight around the edges, eyes growing dim. “Magic of this magnitude? Wants nothing more than to _devour_. Reul Ghorm is _lucky_ I managed to tear her to pieces, first.”

Regina trains her gaze upon the jagged scar along his face, studies it shamelessly for a moment before withdrawing her hand and leaning back out of his space. “So it got a piece of you,” she says thinly, unable to resist folding her arms over her chest. “It still can’t do to you what it would do to anyone else.”

It’s as if she’s made a sharp _crack_ in his veneer, worse than the scar he now bears: all at once, his smile falters, shoulders falling. She nearly misses the words that tumble from his lips, his voice is so quiet. “That’s what I thought.”

_That_ — that is as good as an admission from him, a guilty plea that confirms her earlier suspicions that he’d done this for his own personal gain. Beyond anger, her magic flares up red and hot through her veins, has her forgetting, momentarily, just how thoroughly shaken apart she’d been not five minutes ago sitting alone in that chair and — 

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat around a hard swallow, pulls her focus and has her faltering, just slightly. For a moment, the world is nothing but white noise, narrows down to the stilted, shallow draw of breath from his lungs; the slight clatter of his cane against tile as his hands shake, struggle to grip the handle; the awkward, jerking movement of his sometimes-wounded leg, knee trembling with the effort to stay standing. Her breath slows, stills like ice in her chest, and once more her gaze drifts up to the wound still-fresh and somehow old across his face. It’s almost as if… he’s _trying_ to heal, on instinct and in fragments, but magic seems to die before it can manage, marring his skin to the point of practical disfigurement.

He is not victorious, at all.

“You can’t contain it,” Regina breathes, gaze darting quickly over his features searching for answers. “All that magic — it’s trying to find a way out, like it did with Blue. But there’s more, in you, and it’s… feeding off of your immortality, isn’t it? It’s —“ She stops, chokes on the word for half a moment before it spirals out of her like smoke, heavy and suffocating. “It’s killing you.”

“Trying to, anyway,” he mutters, chuckling dark and low, but he doesn’t quite meet her eyes anymore.

“Liara,” she murmurs, voice thick and eyes stinging something awful. “Her magic can — but you don’t — the tether’s enough?”

“At the moment,” he says, and it’s far gentler, more kind than she thinks he intended or she expected of him, almost like he’s trying to give her reassurance, rather than the other way around.

Gingerly, Regina leans back against the wall. She’s suddenly very aware of the way her heart beats in her chest, steady but just a touch too-slow, breath echoing like wind through a chasm in her ears. “Well what does —“ She stops, swallows hard and tries, very much, to keep her composure, but she’s rooted to the spot, unable to make her mind and body work in tandem. It’s as if she’s back in that chair all over again, fraying apart at the seams, hands shaking against a cold she can no longer feel.

Instinctively her hand comes up, slides over her middle in an effort to ground, soothe. As her fingers skitter across her belly she remembers, in stark clarity, the way it had curved, grown with each new beat of her daughter’s heart. It’s here, in the shadow of memory, that Regina’s ache finds direction, bathed in the light of Liara’s magic even when they’re far apart. “Will it affect her, do you think?” she finally manages to ask. “All that magic you’re harboring? Can it traverse the bond? Will it — will it do to her what it’s trying to do to you?”

Gold takes a breath to steady himself, adjusts his grip on his cane and considers her for a long, hard moment. “I wish I had an answer for you. It’s not as if there’s a precedent for this sort of thing. However,” he says, stepping into her space once more, only this time it’s nowhere near a threat, “if I had to make, let’s say, an educated guess with what we _do_ know, I’d wager that there’s a good chance that little girl will remain unaffected yet. And,” he adds, reaching up to grip her chin lightly, “if need be, and it can be done without severe harm to her, that bond can always be broken.”

Regina tries, fails to draw in breath, blinks back a few tears and reaches up to grasp his hand with her own, desperate for an anchor. And there’s blood — god, there’s so much fucking blood on their hands, Emma’s and Blue’s alike, and Regina’s eyes trace the trails of them down, track the splatter down his tie, the large stain along the hem of her shirt, the way it’s dried, thick and tacky caked under their nails. “ _Rumple_ —“

“Consider it a promise,” he murmurs, thumb pressing firm against her chin, “and if I fail to live up to my end, well.” He pauses, just for a few seconds, but there’s something wry in his smile, eyes not quite so dim. “You did say once, dearie, that the only hand I’d die at would be your own.”

Regina just shakes her head at him, bemusement a brief flicker in all of her tumult. Again, silence takes up the space between them, but it’s softer now, more comfortable, and in the quiet, and the cold, she finds she’s able to take a few deeper, more measured breaths. His grip on her chin relaxes, just slightly, but she can feel the tremors in his hands, the tension in his muscles as he fights to stay steady, standing. Brow wrinkled and eyes narrowed, she relinquishes her grip on his hand and reaches across the divide, fingers trembling slightly as they hover over the withering scar, unsure whether to touch — 

“Where is she?”

Startled, Regina sucks in a breath and turns her head in the direction of the commotion, pulling herself out of Gold’s grasp. She leans out of the alcove a little, straining to hear whoever’s in the main lobby. “Please,” the voice begs again, strained and desperate and oh, _oh_ , it’s Robin, he must’ve gotten her message, “please, my wife — I need to know where she is, she told us she was here but didn’t say what —”

The breath she releases comes out shaky, uneven, but where she’d fought for composure before she finds it easily now, skin finally starting to settle. Equal parts exhausted and relieved, Regina turns her attention back to Gold, a promise ready and waiting on her tongue, but when she looks back, he’s gone.

Bewildered, she pokes her head out of the alcove again, glances down to one end of the hall, then the other, but there’s no sign of him, no _clack_ of his cane against the tile, no pronounced limp to give him away. He’s simply _vanished_ right out from under her, and in his wake all she’s left with is a gnawing worry at the pit of her stomach.

It is entirely possible she may never see him again.

Idly, her fingers rub, drag against the inside of her wrist, skin itching with heat, but she resists the urge to scratch. The light catches off of her ring, draws her gaze to the opal set in gold, has her sucking in a sharp breath at the smattering of crimson stains and it’s not enough to anchor her. She’s so _tired_ , muscles fatigued and every breath an effort and she needs — she _needs_ Robin right now, needs to lose herself in the eye of their storm, warmth and earth and a body still _whole_ because of Emma’s — 

Her feet are carrying her forward back out into the main lobby before she can even finish the thought. It’s hard not to feel disoriented when she crosses the threshold, vision a little fuzzy around the edges and ringing back in her ears, but all it takes is a glance toward the front desk for her heart to skip, rest, tension melting out of her shoulders. “Robin.”

He stops — mid-sentence, she thinks, she has no idea what the hell he was even saying — and whirls immediately at the sound of her voice. For a split second he holds her gaze, echoes that minimal display of relief, but that’s all the time she gets — doesn’t even have time to do more than draw half a breath, much less form any sort of smile — before he’s across the room and enveloping her in his arms. She lands against his chest a little harder than she’d anticipated, breath startled out of her as a quiet _oomph_ , but her fingers are curling, fisting into the material of his shirt before she’s even fully wrapped in his embrace. His arms tighten, squeeze around her, nails scratching roughly against her scalp as he sinks his fingers into her hair to cradle her closer. His heart hammers, hard and too-loud against her ear but it’s perfect, a drum against the ringing that reverberates through the rest of her body and she is _alive_ — 

“You scared the hell out of me,” he chokes out, lips grazing her temple. “I had no way of knowing if you’d sent that message or if someone else —“

“I’m fine,” she says, a trite, thoughtless thing but it’s all she has. It’s hard to catch her breath and she is _shaking_ , still, worse than before, but Regina forces herself to pull back enough to look him in the eyes. She tries, once more, to level out her breathing but fails, ends up reaching up, hands cradling his jaw in an effort to anchor them both. “I’m okay, I promise.”

Robin’s lips thin into a line but time helps, she thinks, notices the way each new breath is slower, more even with every passing second. Still, it’s not enough to reassure him, not completely, not the way she _knows_ he needs right now. Somewhere in her she finds the strength to lead, to take a half step back and let his hands fall, anchor at the small of her back. Robin leans into her guide with ease, expressions softening a bit as he gives her a once-over.

And then he gasps, high and sharp when his gaze settles over her middle, and it takes Regina longer than she’s proud of — has to actually look down for a second to understand.

_Shit_ , that’s a lot of blood.

It keeps catching her off guard, the sheer quantity of it, reminds her a thousand times over that there had been so _much_ more left upon the forest floor. It’s really nothing short of a fucking miracle that Emma is still alive, Regina’s own contributions to achieving that end be damned. But the memory’s there, at the forefront of her mind again, claws at her throat like ice and rattles her down to her bones, so it takes more effort — far, far more effort than it should for her to use her grip to force Robin to meet her eyes again.

“It’s not mine,” she insists, somehow managing to keep her voice even. Robin’s mouth falls open, just slightly, tries to swallow but can’t, looks like his heart is caught in his throat. She sweeps her thumbs across his cheeks, takes a half-step back into his space and leans in just enough to keep him in focus. “It’s not mine.”

“Whose is it then?”

Regina starts at the sound of another voice, shifts her gaze over to where Killian is standing behind Robin, jaw jumping against his nerves. And she _knows_ — she recognizes the look in his eyes, remembers seeing it in her living room last year when he’d gone ashen, irate at the thought of Emma risking her life without the option of being able to help her. It’s enough to knock the wind out of Regina again, has her swallowing hard and zeroing in on the way Robin’s thumb feels, rubbing soothingly against the inside of her wrist now. “Emma’s, but —“

“Where is she?”

Again, Regina pulls back, glances sideways this time at where David’s hovering near her shoulder. He opens his mouth to speak, stops, chin trembling slightly before he finally manages to force out, “Is she —“

“She’s alive,” Regina answers instantly, and the words come much easier this time, desperation a tie that binds. “Gold and I — we did what we could. I think, um, I think she’s still back in surgery, with Whale, if you want to —“

Killian’s feet are a split second faster than David’s but they’re both brushing past her before she can finish her sentence, matching each other’s strides as they make their way down to the east wing. Regina exhales slowly, allows Robin to tug her a little closer before she turns back around to face him — 

— and then Henry is in front of her before she can so much as blink, and he looks as though the world has swallowed him whole. “Mom?” he prompts, voice breaking a little toward the end.

At long last, Regina falls back into instinct and lets it guide her, channels all of her focus into the one thing she knows she _can_ do. She’s reaching for him without a second thought, hesitates only slightly when Robin’s hand grips at her elbow for half a second before releasing her. “Emma will okay, Henry,” she promises. “She just…”

“— needs time, yeah?” Robin supplies, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Same as your mother, or Astrid, or —“

“— or you,” Henry says, eyes lingering on Robin a split second too long.

Regina swallows around her ache, the memory of his body broken _burning_ its way down her throat, but she takes the help where she can get it and throws a grateful look Robin’s way. “We’ve all been hurt, Henry, but we’re okay,” she assures him, and the ghost of Gold lingers when she grips Henry’s chin, gentle and kind. “Emma will be, too, she just… needs time to recover — and to follow doctor’s orders. And believe me, if I could manage earlier this year, so can she.”

The corner of Henry’s mouth quirks up, not enough to be the beginning of a smile but it’s something. “I think you underestimate how stubborn she can be,” he mutters.

That gets _her_ to smile, small but genuine, warm. “Then I guess it’s up to you to keep her in line.” She pauses, just for a second, before withdrawing her hand and suggesting, “You can go back, with the others. I’m sure you being there when she wakes up will help more than magic or medicine could right now.”

Henry raises an eyebrow at her, clearly disbelieving and god, sometimes she forgets just how many of her bad habits he’s picked up from her over the years, but she’s spared from an argument she knows she doesn’t have the energy for when another voice chimes in. “I’ll go with you,” Snow offers, making her presence known. She reaches out to give Henry’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, murmurs into his ear quiet enough that Regina can’t quite make out her words, but in the end it seems to be enough.

Henry sighs — he nods, he sighs, he doesn’t look all that thrilled with their coaxing-not-coddling — but he relents all the same. He does linger, though, for a few seconds longer than he probably normally would, when he leans in to press a kiss to Regina’s cheek.

For a minute it seems like Snow won’t linger — like she’s going out of her way to avoid conversation or look Regina in the eye — but she does stop, right at Regina’s side, when Regina catches her hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing tight. Still, Snow doesn’t look at her, not directly, but Regina sees the way Snow’s eyes drift down and stare a little too long at the blood staining Regina’s skin.

(Regina forces herself to take a deep breath and shake off the shadows mirrors have left behind.

_She does not destroy everything she touches._ )

“Blue,” Snow mumbles, low enough that Henry won’t hear from a few feet away. “Where is she?”

For the space it takes her to answer, Regina feels everything in her go remarkably calm, quiet and cool. Another smile, this one more twisted, and if she’d dug deep for the Evil Queen earlier she rises up easily now, heart three sizes too small. “Dead,” she says, and _fuck_ if that doesn’t feel good to say after the agony they’ve suffered at Blue’s hand this year. “Gold tore her to pieces.”

A beat, and then Snow lifts her gaze slowly, deliberately.

There is _murder_ in her eyes, and much like March, Regina can’t help but regard her with something akin to adoration.

“Good riddance,” Snow says, but her voice is thick, wet, and everything about her expression is equal parts anger and relief. Her eyes are full of menace but Regina doesn’t miss the way Snow’s chin trembles, just a little, and her smile is too soft around the edges to be considered cruel.

With only half a heart Snow is unfailingly kind, and even with the hatchet long buried there are some days Regina still wonders what she did to deserve that kind of faith.

(Why, after everything she’s done, she hasn’t managed to lose it.)

“Go be with your daughter,” Regina prompts gently, nudging Snow companionably with her elbow. “I’m willing to bet that no matter _how_ stubborn she is, she’s going to want her mother, when she wakes.”

Snow’s face crumples, just a touch, but she nods in agreement anyway, even as she blinks back tears. “I know I would.”

She doesn’t linger any longer, pulls out of Regina’s grasp and reaches for Henry’s hand instead, but Snow has left her mark anyway. Regina can’t help glancing over her shoulder, eyes following them as they make their way down the long stretch of hallway. By the time they turn the corner, her heart has leapt into her throat, beating triple time.

Sometimes she forgets that Snow had been a thief of sorts once, too.

“Does that hurt?”

Regina blinks back into focus, brow wrinkling as she turns back to Robin. “What?”

There’s the slightest twinge of ache in his eyes, still fresh, but there’s something altogether gentle about the way he considers her for a good half a moment before reaching for her. “You’ve a bruise,” he murmurs, hand hovering near her neck, “just… here.”

It takes her a second to put the pieces together, but it’s not until she reaches up to touch, fingers fluttering along the column of her throat, that she remembers, with distinct, stark clarity, the vice-like grip of Blue’s hand around her throat, nails stinging into her skin. Regina swallows hard at the memory, tries to hide it and fails, if the way a shadow flits across Robin’s expression is any indication. “A little?” she offers, wanting to be honest but needing the placation for herself as much as him. “Adrenaline’s starting to wear off but it’s not bad.”

“She hurt you.”

He’s not going to let it go, not that it surprises her, but the thought of letting him have this — of being honest to the point of recounting the details of what happened — has her heart stuttering, breath stilted and chest tight. “Emma’s worse,” Regina says, deflecting, “and I’m fine."

Robin takes a measured breath, and then another, and Regina recognizes it for the bid for control it really is. It’s that — the simple reflection of how far he’s come in the last year in understanding what drives his temper, and how to counteract his fear — which has her relaxing a little, lungs expanding while she waits him out. “Regina,” he says, and his voice is level but the edge to it doesn’t go unnoticed, “the last time Blue managed to get her hands on you, you ended up at Death’s door.”

Warmth blossoms, spreads through her chest, right up against her sternum, and as… tried as her nerves are at the moment she can’t help but take a beat to let it consume her the way magic never could. Because yes, this is every bit him arguing against the dismissive approach she’s taking, but it’s also heart, and soul, entrusted in her hands, and it’s not lost on her that he knows, full well, that she can read between the lines.

Robin is afraid, and Regina loves him, for being brave.

“The last time Blue managed to get her hands on me,” she says at last, stepping into his space and resting her palms against his chest, just off center of his heart, “Emma shaved off years of her life a little at a time just to make sure I survived. I can handle a few bruises.”

Again, he takes a moment to consider her, shifts his weight from one leg to the other and rolls his shoulders back. She recognizes it for the discomfort it is (knows she’ll need to have her magic at the ready tonight, sharp and honed, just… in case), and the words that follow when he finally speaks don’t surprise her at all. “Will you at least tell me how it happened?”

“There’s not much to it,” she says, and she’s hedging, she knows, deflecting as much as she can. She owes him this much — particularly after what Blue had done to him, over two weeks ago — but she does not, _does not_ want to relive this right now, not when she can feel her magic thrumming like a livewire, not when she feels as if she’s going to vibrate out of her skin, not when she _needs_ him, strong and steady and sure, to bring her back to center. “I could take the risk, or let Emma bleed to death. I didn’t really look at it as a choice.”

“Regina,” he says, emphatic and low, and he’s spiraling a bit too, she knows, always does when he makes a point to use her name over and over again like this. He hesitates for a second, starts to speak and stops, and when he reaches out to finally graze his fingertips over the marks along her neck his touch is supremely gentle, tender. “Regina, you know — you _know_ Blue could have killed you both.”

“She didn’t,” Regina reminds him needlessly. She can hear the argument build in the breath in his lungs before it even makes it past his lips but she shakes her head, stops him before he gets started and reaches back to grip his hands with hers, stomach turning unpleasantly when she sees her hands stained red. “Don’t,” she pleads, crowds into his space and touches her forehead clumsily to his, voice thick with the onslaught of tears. “ _Please_ , don’t. We have had this argument a _thousand_ times over,” she breathes, exhaustion evident in her tone. “We are never going to do anything less than put our lives on the lines for those we love most, Robin. _All_ we can do in the meantime is make the most of every second chance we get — _you_ are the one who taught me that, remember?”

“I can’t lose —“

“I know!” she says, sharp and slightly hysterical as she pulls back abruptly to look him in the eyes. “I know better than _anyone_ how that feels because today was the second time in less than three weeks that I’ve had to watch the light start to go out in the eyes of someone I love, so _please_ ,” she says, and she’s absolutely begging at this point but resolutely does not care, just squeezes his hands that much harder, “please just… _be here_ with me right now, okay?”

“Okay, hey, hey, it’s alright,” he soothes, gathering her up in his arms and pulling her flush against him. Her tears are already falling by the time she buries her face into his shirt, her vision blurring the line between red and gray where her hands are fisted tightly into soft cotton.

(She does not, _does not_ destroy everything she touches.)

“Her lips were so blue,” Regina confesses around a sharp exhale, and Robin’s grip on her tightens in reply. “She was — it was like she was made of ice. She couldn’t — I couldn’t keep her warm before they took her, she lost _so_ much blood —“

“Okay, just…” He sucks in a breath and pulls back a little, studying her for a half moment. “C’mere,” he murmurs, taking up her hand in his, and Regina does not have to be told twice to trust, and follow. It’s reminiscent of the way she’d stumbled blindly after Gold a little while ago and she tries, fails to blink back into focus, can only narrow in on the way Robin’s skin feels against hers, the warmth that radiates from within.

(He is _alive_ , and whole — and hers.)

Still, she’s only marginally present when he finally pulls her through a door, can only nod absently when he settles her gently into a chair and tells her to _wait here, just for a moment_. The moment is long enough, though, for the rest of the adrenaline to wear off, and where her breathing had been shallow, stilted moments ago it’s slow, staccato now, tears beginning to dry with each sluggish blink of her eyes. Vaguely, she’s aware that she’s finally stopped shaking, hands resting limp atop her thighs now that her nerves are fucking shot.

It’s here, with her hands, that cognizance finally starts to creep in around the edges again, pulling her to the surface as Robin kneels down in front of her and takes her hand in his once more. She gets lost in his details for a few minutes while he rummages around in the caddy next to them (and it takes her longer still to realize that’s probably why he’d left for a moment before). His face is pinched a little, wrinkle forming above his nose, and when he produces a damp cloth it’s hard not to sink back into memory again — to the mirror image of them at the edge of their bed, her skin ripped open by glass.

(She had sewn Emma’s back together, with heart.)

The more she studies him, though, the less she thinks he’s angry or frustrated with her. There’s something altogether tender about his expression, still soft around the edges, and as she comes out of her fog she thinks that perhaps this is more about him, than her.

_Her lips were so blue._

Her fingers tingle as he wipes, washes her hands, wrists, arms clean, feeling being forced back into them a little at a time. It doesn’t escape her notice that he makes a point to tuck the sullied cloths out of sight, once they’re unusable, a kindness she thinks he’s granting to himself, as well as her. His touch is gentler still when he shifts his attention to her neck, mindful of the bruises she’s yet to use magic to heal (probably won’t, for a long while, not while her magic is still this unhinged). It’s almost impossible not to lean into him, to let her eyes slip shut and lose herself in pine, and earth — 

“Lift your arms for me, darling.”

Regina blinks, bewildered, eyes narrowing when she sees his hands empty. “What?”

Robin reaches for the hem of her shirt, pinches the material between his fingers with a slight grimace and tugs meaningfully. A quick glance down finds him gripping a stain he can’t wash clean. Stomach twisting, she obliges quickly, lifts her arms above her head and lets him pull her top up and over, material damp and limp in his hands. Clad only in her bra now, she shivers slightly as more skin is exposed to the cool hospital air, but he’s back in her space before the chill has a chance to sink in, new cloth wet and warm. Here too, he’s slower, more gentle about his movement, careful not to rub roughly across her belly.

His fingertips linger, just before he pulls away, dance featherlight over the silver-white scars stretched along her abdomen, and all at once Regina remembers Gold.

“Liara,” she rasps, cringing at how raw her voice sounds. “Where is she?”

Robin relaxes visibly at the mention of their daughter. “With Roland,” he says, “as is Marian. They’re alright, darling, I promise.”

“Okay, good, that’s… good,” she sighs, lifting a hand to push her hair out of her eyes. “I just — I’m going to need a little while before I can see her. I don’t want her magic to pick up on all of… this,” she says, gesturing vaguely over her body.

“You and me both,” he mutters, and she knows without asking that he’s talking about himself, too.

He groans a little as he leans back on his haunches, fingers grasping the hem of his own shirt and pulling it swiftly up and over his head, leaving him in just an undershirt. Confusion disappears almost as quickly as it had clouded her judgement, his intent clear once he’s adjusted the shirt in his hands. Her heart flutters, a little, as she ducks her head inside, slips her arms through the sleeves and lets him right it properly on her frame.

A smile (however small) blossoms onto Regina’s face as she leans in, grazes her lips against his with as much affection as she can muster and murmurs an easy _I love you_.

“And I, you,” he replies, sneaking, stealing a second kiss before leaning back. He considers her for a moment before venturing, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince you to have a bit of a lie down — get some rest, is there?”

The sound that accompanies her answering exhale isn’t quite a laugh — she doesn’t quite have the effort for that right now — but it’s still dry, humorless. “I don’t think I could sleep right now even if I tried — even if I wanted to.” She pauses, just for a beat, but it’s enough for ache to burn a hole against her sternum, ripping open the wound still fresh that desperation had left behind. “And I can’t sleep or — or leave,” she admits quietly, arching into his touch as he smooths his hands along her sides. “What if… she still needs me?”

Another moment of silence while he looks her over, clearly debating whether or not this is a battle worth fighting. “Well then,” he finally sighs, fingers skimming along her arms, “we should probably join the others in the east wing, yeah?”

Once more, Regina’s lips curve into a small smile. Like always, Robin follows her lead with the utmost faith, and trust, and Regina is all heart, in his hands. “Thank you,” she says, barely above a whisper. There’s so _much_ she wishes she could give voice to, wishes she could express her gratitude in a way that didn’t feel trite or hollow, but he knows — he _always_ knows the words she wants to say without needing to hear them.

“There’s really no need,” he says, groaning a bit as he pushes himself off of his knees and pulls her to her feet. “I’ve no intention of leaving your side for…”

“Ever?” Regina muses after a beat or two, and oh, _oh, that_ feels _so_ good right now, to be able to tease him like this — like breaking in a new pair of lungs, one breath at a time.

For the first time since his arrival, Robin’s lips quirk up with the beginnings of a smile, and Regina’s heart skips three times in her chest. “The rest of today,” he murmurs, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear, “tomorrow,” a beat to just… look at her, eyes soft, and warm, before cupping the back of her head and pressing a kiss to her temple, “always.”

Her eyes flutter shut at the soft press of his lips against her skin, heart skipping one last time before finally coming back to rest. Instinctively she tightens her grasp on his hand in an effort to anchor herself and root, all the way down. Her magic is still thrumming through her veins like a livewire waiting to catch, spark, but it’s not quite so… wild, anymore. Like she could surge, and burn out, and not take out anyone in her path in the process.

Not all side effects are fatal.

This time when she shivers it’s against the cool current of air from the vents settling against her still slightly damp skin, nerves no longer threatening to rip her apart at the seams. Robin pulls back a bit, brings her hand up to his lips to graze a kiss against her knuckles as her eyes blink open blearily against the too-bright light, vision blurring, swimming against glimmer and gleam and gold.

_Gold_.

Regina inhales sharply, smile breaking free and unbidden onto her face. Slowly, Robin pulls back, nose wrinkling a little as he surveys her curiously. “What is it?”

“Earlier,” she says, “when you came in and you were looking for me, you told reception — you called me your wife.”

Almost instantly his cheeks flush, tinge with the mildest of pinks. “Oh,” is all he says for a moment, gaze dropping to her hand and fixating, very deliberately, on the opal set against diamond, and gold. It needs a proper clean still but the worst of the blood is gone thanks to Robin’s care, stone practically glittering under the florescent lights.

His silence is telling, though, and Regina knows even without seeing his eyes exactly where his mind is right now. All at once the memory is like a shadow looming around them and for a second it’s hard to breathe, Blue’s words to her at the beginning of July a dull echo in her ears.

Blue is _dead_ , and the weight of the last couple of months — the disappointment in Robin’s eyes, when she’d broken the news; the way her skin had itched, fingers twitching to remove page twenty-three from where it hung on their bedroom wall every time her faith wavered; the frustration and friction that formed a fissure between them as a result of being forced to postpone their nuptials, in order to protect their son (and Robin, too, though his regard for his own life is just as reckless as hers, some days) — can finally be a thing of the past.

“It wasn’t — I was trying not to panic,” he says at last, and there’s an edge to his voice that’s less shame and more like he’s… lost, in trying to figure out exactly how to explain or understand what his heart had done. “It wasn’t intentional, I just… didn’t think before —“

“Robin,” she says, the barest hint of a laugh in her voice, “it’s not like that. I just meant — you’ll actually be able to call me that, soon.”

A beat, and then his eyes flick up, lock with hers as the implication becomes clear. “Oh. That’s — oh.”

Her teeth dig into her lower lip in an effort not to laugh at him. “We should probably wait until — until Emma’s awake,” she says, and that takes the edge off, sobers her up enough to loop her arms around his neck and simply smile at him, soft, and warm. “But if you’re free — next week, maybe? I’d definitely like to meet you at the altar.”

Robin’s answering kiss is a thousand times the _yes_ she’s always had, even since before he first asked months ago, but it sparks in her a fire that vengeance never could, victory sweet and simmering against her tongue. Eager, Regina rocks up on the balls of her feet, arching against him as she seeks anchor, and warmth. For the space of a few slow, smoldering kisses, they are every bit the eye of a storm, calm amongst chaos.

A thrill shivers down her spine, delighted and altogether dangerous, when Robin mumbles a low _Mrs. Locksley_ against her mouth, and of all the side effects rippling out as a result of Blue’s death, Regina thinks that she might like this one, the most.


End file.
